Friday, October 18, 2013

“I cannot believe you. Those that are damned to roam the earth need more than an earthly power to send them back to where they belong. Are you sure you haven’t been blest by a priest?”

I shrugged. “Well, I might have been baptised. I don’t know.”

“How can you not know something as important as that?”

“My parents died when I was very young. I don’t remember anything before the orphanage.” I looked at Sister Anna. “I wish I had known my parents, but I never did.”

Sister Anna stared hard at me. “My parents died too. Someone took me to the church and I was raised by the nuns. Naturally, I became one.”

“Sister, there is nothing natural about being a nun. Not a fucking damned thing.” Very gentle dissuasion wasn’t working. Maybe cruder language would make Sister Anna leave me alone.

“Gerald Finster! What would you know about natural?” She took a step toward me, shaking one finger. “You go from place to place, claiming to exorcise demons. How can you claim my life is unnatural.”

Damn, I was hoping she’d take the hint. Apparently Sister Anna was immune to language. Unfortunately, she also had a point. I didn’t have a home, family or even friends. I didn’t stay anywhere more than a few days, ever. Maybe embarrassment would work where cussing failed me. “Have you a method for determining if it’s the same demon time after time? I have no way of knowing.”

She blinked at me a few times. “Not really, I need to talk to a priest about it.”

“Why don’t you do that? When we met again, you can tell me.” With any luck, that should keep her away from me.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

This is a comedy-of-errors. The story is about a logical nun who is constantly annoying an exorcist. It starts in a house in a village. The master villain of the story actually must be defeated in several different forms. Writing prompt generatedby Seventh Sanctum

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“I’m so grateful that you could come and see,” the woman told me. The woman’s voice was an irritating high pitched squeaky one. She found out what I did when I drank a bit too much in the local tavern. I never did learn to watch my mouth after I’d had a few.

“Can you save my Charlie? I know he’s possessed.” We were standing in a small house at the edge of a village.

I leaned in for a closer look. The man on the bed was looking very limp and happened to belch as I got close. His breath told me all I needed to know. He might be possessed by spirits, but they were distilled, not demons. Still, if I pretended to exorcise his ‘demons’ maybe she’d pay up. Or at least invite me to a decent meal, it had been a long time since I’d last had one.

Charlie moaned loudly, which gave me an idea. I had my bag, I always carried the bag with me. In it, I found a bottle of the most foul smelling concoction that I carried. I pulled out the cork and waved it under his nose. One whiff had Charlie out of bed and headed outside, looking very green.

“I believe that the demons are vanquished, ma’am. I assume that you’d like to pay promptly for services rendered?”

“Pay?” she squeaked at me. “Pay? I thought it was your duty?”

“Exorcism is my profession. If I don’t get paid, I don’t eat. And I really do love to eat,” I replied.

“Out, out,” she shrieked at me. “I never thought you’d ask for money.”

I should have known, I really should have. If there is one thing that happens time and again, it’s people believing that some services don’t require money. I trudged out of the house, I could tell that this one was a hopeless case.

“Hello, Gerald. You are looking rather out of sorts tonight.”

Oh god, my night just got infinitely worse. “Sister Anna, what a surprise to see you here.”

Sister Anna may be a wonderful nun, a kindly person, someone that birds simply flock to. From my point of view, she’s just a pest.

“Now Gerald, I had to find you. We didn’t finish our last discussion.”

I sighed. Now that Sister Anna had found me, I was doomed to listen to more of our last discussion. “I don’t need to belong to your religion to succeed in my job. Demons don’t care if I’m Christian.”

“It takes the power of God to send a soul back to heaven or hell. If you don’t have the power of God, those souls must still roam the earth. You might be exorcising the same demon over and over again.”

I wish I could exorcise Sister Anna from my life. “I send the demons back to hell where they belong. End of story. Your faith is not required.”